Description

FIRST EDITION published in two volumes.
Current edition without mention after 10 copies on Chine and 50 copies on Hollande.

Inscribed and signed by the author on the false title of the first volume to the Belgian dealer, collector, expert, art critic and patron Léon Gauchez:

"to Mr Gauchez souvenirs
Edmond de Goncourt"

The book is peppered with 3 autograph letters signed by (December 79, 17 March 82 and 19 May 82) addressed to the same :
"I sell my line for ten cents and a line of about thirty letters [...] I will ask you to pay me as you pay the people you pay best at home. And if you were to be gallant with me I would be sent the money, which would save me the trouble.
Now, naturally, I ask to be printed in large type. The fragment I shall give you is a study of 18th-century portraits of French women (princesses, women of the world, actresses), not from the point of view of engraving but from the physiological point of view.e [...]an anecdote to bring them to life for the reader.
"You may not know that Mr. Gouse is preparing a large illustrated work on the Japanese collections in Paris, and that I am being persecuted for allowing him to reproduce objects from my collection, and even a piece of my prose from the Maison d'un Artiste on Japanese embroidery.
He came to see me the day before yesterday about this. I told him, without naming you, that I was in the process of concluding a treaty with someone to illustrate my book. [...]

Elegant contemporary bindings signed C. Chapalain.